Carpological Epidemiology of Chicken Coccidiosis in and Around Gondar Town, North West Ethiopia

A cross sectional study was conducted from November 2017 up to April 2018 in and around Gondar town to estimate the prevalence of chicken coccidiosis and to identify the associated risk factors. Fecal sample from a total of 408 chickens, were taken (using simple random sampling technique) and flotation method was employed to harvest coccidial oocysts. The result indicated that out of 408 Chickens, 99(24.3%) of the chickens were found positive. The prevalence was found highly statistically significant (P<0.05) across age groups, in which 43.6%<5 Month old chickens and14.9% in chickens of greater or equals to five months old. A statistically significant difference (P<0.05) in prevalence of coccidiosis was also noted across management of chickens with the prevalence of 30.6% in intensive and 19.6% in semi intensive management of chickens respectively. There was no statistically significant difference (P<0.05) on the prevalence between male (29.2%) and female (21.8%) chickens. The effect of Breed on the disease prevalence was assessed and relatively high prevalence was recorded in local chickens (25.9%) than exotic chickens (21.7%) but not significant (P>0.05). In addition to this, no statistically significant difference (P>0.05) among the housing types with the prevalence of 25.2% in Floor and 21.5% in Backyard . In conclusion, as the current study showed that coccidiosis is an important disease of chicken and it indicates appropriate control strategies need to be designed in order to reduce the impact of chicken Coccidiosis in the study area.

Keywords: Chicken, Coccidiosis , Coprological , Gondar, Prevalence